Developing a Personal Ministry Website

I dedicate this resource page to missionaries world-wide who would like to develop their own personal ministry website. Here you will find information to encourage and support you in launching and maintaining a personal website which promotes your ministry goals. This website (Hannas.Org and East Is East blog) is the ministry website for our own family and ministry. It is a work-site, designed and maintained for a very narrow ministry purpose. So put on your hard hat and take a look around.

If you like what you see here, you can probably do as well or better. I am a layman with no formal training in computer or internet fields. Clearly the days are past when you needed to have special knowledge or skills in order to put up a website. No longer must you depend on a third party expert to maintain a website for you and wait for him to post or change your information at his convenience. With the tools and resources available right now, any person with basic computer literacy can launch and maintain a personal ministry website that possesses sufficient functionality and visual appeal to be effective.

Here are some ways in which our website has helped to advance our own ministry goals.

1. Information. It is a one-stop location for all kinds of information about our family and ministry. Our financial and prayer supporters, extended family, and friends can all check in at their convenience for a wide variety of content including current news, prayer requests, facts about our field, personal interest items, prayer letters, photos, contact information and addresses, and more.
2. Communication. When we communicate better and more fully about our ministry it encourages those at home to take a greater interest in our ministry and in the broader ministry of the gospel. A ministry website also provides increased opportunity for the reader/viewer to communicate back to the missionary through email links, comment features, snail mail addresses, links to social networking sites, telephone numbers, etc.
3. Recruitment. Most traditional methods of missionary communication (prayer letters, etc.) are not well suited to communicating the missionary’s deepest dreams, plans, vision, and goals. After communicating the essential facts about what has recently taken place in his ministry and then requesting prayer for that which has not yet taken place, a one or two page prayer letter has no room (or very little room) left over for these other important topics. A ministry website provides a public forum for the communication and dissemination of the missionary’s vision. This has the potential not only to draw in prayer warriors who share our burden and passion but also to recruit co-laborers who will enter into our vision and desire to join in the actual missionary task.
4. Extension. You may be reading this article in Australia or Zambia, Mainland China or New York City; the internet links us with readers around the world we may never meet. Our website enables us to post biblical and spiritual resources in both English and our ministry language (Mandarin Chinese) which effectively extends our ministry world-wide.

This page is a project in progress, so check in from time to time to see if we’ve added anything new. Explore the links below for help and information on specific topics related to ministry website development.